General Purpose Printing for Students

As a student, almost all of your printing is likely to happen in one of our public lab spaces. All public labs make use of the PaperCut print management system. Below you will find instructions on how to print in our labs, a list of those labs and their locations, and a brief introduction to the idea of print management.

Better management of your printing, including improved security/privacy when printing in a public environment. Rather than simply clicking Print and the file appearing on the printer immediately, the print management system intercepts the request and provides additional management options. These include verification of your identity, grouping of multiple print jobs for release at once, and cancelling incorrect or extra print jobs.

Reduce the amount of excess and uncollected printing. While a certain amount of printing is required in any educational institute, Carleton's volume is considered excessive and, in some cases, unnecessary. It was not uncommon to discard thousands of pages of uncollected printouts each day in the labs. Print management almost entirely eliminates the problem of unwanted printouts and promotes a more conscious awareness of printing habits.

Following the implementation of our original print management system (GoPrint) in 2008, we saw a 15% reduction in print volume over the previous year. This was a huge improvement over the 10-15% annual increase that we had seen in previous years.

You need your OneCard to swipe and log in to Release Stations. Essentially, the OneCard identifies you to the Release Station which is then able to retrieve a list of files that you have sent to the corresponding printer. The most important thing is that the person who logs in to PaperCut on the computer (and tags each print job with their ID) is the same as the person whose OneCard is used at the Release Station.

What happens if I lose my OneCard?

Guest printing cards are available for emergency use at the ITS HelpDesk in the CMC, the Research/IT desk in the Gould Library, and the IdeaLab service point in the Weitz Center for Creativity. However, you should replace your OneCard as soon as possible, for many reasons.

Why Isn't My New OneCard Working?

When you are issued a new OneCard, there are many systems on campus that need to be updated with the new information from your card. While some of these updates happen immediately, some take approximately 24 hours to complete. You will need to make use of a Guest printing card (see previous question).